More Mexican immigrants leaving US than arriving

More Mexican immigrants, documented and undocumented, are returning to Mexico instead of staying in the United States. An estimated 870,000 Mexicans came to the United States between 2009-2014, but one million returned home. In 2014, there were 11.3 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S., according to Pew Research.

“The net decline in Mexicans was driven by the great recession in the U.S. that made it harder to find jobs, and the economy is improving in Mexico,” said Mark Lopez, director of Hispanic research center.

Fourteen percent of the one million Mexicans who returned to their home country since 2009 said they did so because they were deported. Sixty-one percent said they returned to Mexico to reunite with family and the remainder returned of their own accord, according to Pew Research Center.

The U.S. won’t see another massive wave of legal and illegal immigration like it did in recent decades; which the number of Mexican born immigrants had ballooned from 3 million to nearly 13 million at its peak in 2007, according to USA Today News.

Mexicans make up about half of all unauthorized immigrants, about 49 percent, though their numbers have been declining in recent years, according to Pew Research Center.

“I feel that many Mexican immigrants are returning back to their home country because they realize that it is just as tough, if not tougher, to make a living out here in the U.S.,” said student Rebecca Sanders. “The nature of immigration itself is beginning to change,” Lopez said. “It looks like Mexican migration is at an end.”

Immigrants from China, India, and other Asian nations are coming as students and high tech workers. Eventually, Asians will become the dominant share of the immigrant population, according to USA Today News.

“It would be a mistake to view the slowdown in Mexican migration as the end of the United States’ immigration boom,” said Roy Beck, president of Numbers USA. “The country continues to see a massive stream of foreign workers entering on work visas.

“Many Mexican immigrants probably think that the United States will be an easier route to landing a better paying job and make more money, but what they are probably not factoring in is the cost of living, everything out here cost so much more money,” said student Mark Castillo.

Seventy-six percent of Mexican born immigrants in the United States had not completed high school in 1990. By 2013, 42 percent of Mexican born immigrants completed high school and 18 percent started or graduated from college, according to Pew Research Center.

“Compared to Mexico, the Unites States offers way more opportunities to better yourself. I myself am first generation to be born here in the United States, and the first in my entire family to attend a University,” said student Brenda Saucedo. “I’m grateful and proud to have these opportunities today”.